Shares of Dow Inc. advanced 3.71% to $25.73 Monday, on what proved to be an all-around great trading session for the stock market, with the S&P 500 Index rising 1.23% to 6,875.16 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 0.

Dow Jones futures, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures, traded slightly higher ahead of Tuesday's open, after the stock market rallied to record highs Monday. Meanwhile, Nvidia NVDA, Microsoft MSFT, Palantir Technologies PLTR and Tesla TSLA were big winners on the stock market Monday, closing in buy zones.

The stock market rally has already defied expectations this year, shrugging off geopolitical strife, economic uncertainty and global trade tensions to reach fresh record highs. Some analysts say the rally might just be getting started.

Stocks rallied to more records ahead of a week packed with potentially market-moving events. The S&P 500 rose 1.2% Monday.

With 16 consecutive years of dividend raises and plenty of levers to pull to reward shareholders, here's why Microsoft has what it takes to continue outperforming the Dow and the S&P 500 for years to come. Image source: Getty Images.

Stock futures pointed sharply higher Monday, led by chipmaker and tech shares, on optimism that the U.S. and China would strike a trade deal, with President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping set to meet later this week.

Over multidecade periods, history has consistently shown that stocks are the premier wealth creator. While other asset classes, such as real estate and bonds, have generated nominal gains for investors, nothing has come close to matching the average annual return of stocks over long timelines.

Shares of Nauticus Robotics climbed after the company said it secured a $250 million equity line of credit. The stock rose 23% to $2.17 Monday. Shares are down 84% this year. The autonomous subsea robotics company said it plans to use the credit facility to pursue acquisitions to enter the deep-sea rare earth and mineral exploration market.